As Samuel took a final step, barely an arm’s reach away from the man, Tabbet realised he was lost and turned to run. It was a fatal mistake, for the magician was now defenceless, stumbling away on rubber legs.
Samuel held his upturned palm towards Tabbet and made a crushing gesture. With a series of loud snaps, Tabbet folded in every direction he should not; a knotted clump of barely recognisable bone and flesh jutting from black rags.
The joy of magic vanished as Samuel released his hold on the ether. Tears poured from his eyes as if erupting free from his sockets, but he had no time to feel such things. The burning in his bones and the stinging in his muscles would have to wait. He ran over to Tabbet’s horse and swung himself up onto the saddle. Its mind had been paralysed to hold it still and Samuel quickly untied the spell. He kicked the animal in the ribs and spurred it on as fast as it could go, carrying him at breakneck speeds under the pale starlight. He denied what he had seen, refused to believe what could have happened. Thoughts raced through Samuel’s mind on how she could still be alive, but terrible images flashed before him as he drove Tabbet’s horse for the village with everything it was worth.
Samuel’s heart filled with choking dread when he saw a small crowd gathered outside the Sallow house. He tried to climb down from Tabbet’s horse, but his limbs had become leaden and he fell from the saddle onto his face. He could hear some commotion and some shouts from the house, but the noises were buzzes and drones in his ears.
Climbing awkwardly to his feet, he staggered on and pushed his way past men and women alike, struggling inside the house and into the reading room. The sight that met him struck like a blow, as if an unseen fist had punched through his chest and seized his heart in its steely grasp.
Manfred Sallow was sitting on the floor in a pool of blood, clutching the body of his daughter desperately in his arms and sobbing wildly. Despair boiled up into Samuel’s throat, choking him. He shook his head and tried to somehow dispel the scene before him, but it would not go. A knife lay at Leila’s feet, slick with blood, and she and her father were literally covered in the same scarlet fluid, almost as if they had been bathing in it. Her face seemed quiet and peaceful despite the scene, but there was no aura around her at all. She was long dead.
Samuel scrambled desperately down to Leila’s side. He knew he was shouting something, but he had no control of himself or his words. He tried to take her in his arms, slipping and skidding on the floor, but her father would not let her go and other arms grabbed Samuel firmly and pulled him away. He struggled futilely against them, but he had no strength left with which to resist.
Manfred Sallow’s horror-twisted face looked towards the onlookers with reddening anger. ‘Why did she do this?’ he sobbed, trembling and shaking with his daughter still in his arms. He hugged her body close against him and continued sobbing, letting out a long howl of despair.
Samuel was empty. He hung limply in the arms of whomever or whatever was holding him. There seemed to be a block of ice clotted in his chest and the blood had frozen in his veins. She was dead.
Manfred laid his daughter down and then, grunting and with the great effort of a fattened hog heaving itself from the mud, he clambered to his feet and came lumbering forward like a madman. Samuel made no effort to move as Manfred’s fists came crashing into his face-he barely noticed the fact at all. His head was knocked aside and about, and he felt something that was once pain, but his eyes stayed locked on Leila’s gentle face as the room turned sideways and he struck the floor. Warm, salty blood began to pour through his nose and mouth.
More hands lifted him and a heavy-set man turned Samuel around to face him. ‘You’d better leave, son,’ the man said, sounding like a voice in a dream.
Samuel nodded dumbly and took an unsteady step towards the door. He stopped for a moment, letting the doorframe take his weight so he could turn and take one last look at her. The stark image of Leila lying so peacefully, as if she were having some wonderful dream, and the great stains of blood and bloody handprints all over her pale white dress seemed to burn into Samuel’s mind. He felt that his heart was trying to climb up in his throat and he had to take a great gulping breath as the air just did not seem enough. There was nothing he could do. He felt drowned in helplessness and sorrow. Manfred Sallow was screaming and having fits, fighting the men that held him, clawing to be at Samuel, but the young magician barely noticed at all. As he staggered out of the house, his mind could not escape its continuous, torturous knell-
The Downs were waiting in their house filled with worry when Samuel finally returned. Simpson had come down from the hill when he had heard the ruckus only to find a hole he could bury a couple of cows in at his steps and an inch of soil spread over the house and barn, not to mention the mutilated body lying nearby. He had found his wife shaking and sobbing under their bed and he still had no idea of what had happened.
With a stuttering tongue, Samuel managed to explain the event with Tabbet and what had happened to Leila. Mrs Down broke down in tears and even Simpson, stoic at the worst of times, had red-rimmed eyes as he tried to comfort her.
‘What will you do now, lad?’ Mrs Down asked.
‘I am a damned fool,’ he said, choking on his words. ‘I should have killed that bastard Ash three times over by now. Now, he has killed Leila. I’m going to go find him and I’m not coming back.’
‘Just think carefully, Samuel,’ old Simpson said. ‘You’ve lost a lot already and you may go getting yourself killed, too.’
Samuel pushed his notes into his satchel and gathered his things with unsteady hands. He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter now. I’m going.’ He stopped and looked at the old couple squarely. ‘I’m going to kill him at last.’
‘Take care, lad,’ Simpson said and Mrs Down crushed Samuel in a great sobbing hug.
‘You should play some music to the animals from time to time,’ Samuel instructed. ‘They like it. I’m taking Jess with me, but there’s another horse outside-the magician’s. It’s Imperial stock and sturdy enough.’
Lastly, he pushed his long-neglected magician’s robes into his bag and left the house. Simpson came out onto the steps as Samuel hurriedly readied Jess.
‘You know you’re welcome back any time,’ old Simpson noted. ‘We can never repay you enough. You gave our sad old lives some meaning at last. You’ve been like a son to us.’
Samuel pulled the last leather straps tight on Jess’ halter and, after quickly checking things over, threw himself up onto the saddle. ‘It’s I who can never repay the both of you. If not for your kindness, I never would have stayed here-I never would have met her. For the first time in my life, I was free of the death of my family-I finally had the chance to actually live; I escaped from my past. I loved every moment here with all my heart and I will miss you both more than I can express. Goodbye.’
Samuel kicked his heels and set Jess cantering away, only pulling to an abrupt halt at Tabbet’s ruined corpse. Vaulting down again, Samuel tied the body to a saddle ring with a length of old cord. He would dump the wretched thing in the woods where the animals could have it. As Jess trotted down the stony winding path, Samuel raised one hand in brief goodbye and left the Down farm behind him, with Tabbet’s body snaking behind across the stones.
At the end of the path, where the Down house was but a distant light on a hill, Samuel brought Jess to a snorting halt. The animal whinnied, her breath making frosty clouds and she stamped her hooves impatiently. Samuel looked to the farmhouse one last time and sighed. He then pulled Jess around and they began along the long, circling road that hugged its way down the hills to Gilgarry, dragging the dead magician behind.
It was just before first light when Samuel passed through Gilgarry and, shortly after that, he reached Count Rudderford’s estate. The temperature had plunged overnight and a sheet of frost lay over everything. Roosters were crowing and smoke hung low in the valley below. A servant was returning with a cart of firewood, ready to stoke the day’s oven.
Samuel had ridden through the night and felt wooden in his saddle. All he cared about was killing Ash- preferably, in some gruesome and most painful fashion. Leila was dead-he could not deny that fact-but the thought still felt strange and numb. For now, it was just an empty statement, void of substantial meaning.
